By the time Hal, Sonia and Kyle had made their way to the front of the guildhall the next day there was a crowd of Adventurers and their various steeds waiting impatiently for them. Some of the mounts were simple horses (or at least appeared to be) but some were rarer creatures like riding lizards and there were even a few tamed monsters that had people riding them. And that was without even mentioning the companions which were almost as varied as their owners, not that every Adventurer had one of course but it was still more than any of the three had seen in any one place since Farholt. Fi who was a wrapped around Kyle’s neck like usual shifted uncomfortably as they passed the companions who were all larger and much more powerful than she was. They still weren’t as powerful as Digby, Ai, Sammy or Sul but they were more powerful than any other companion that she had ever met.

Most of the Adventurers nearby turned to look at them with irritated looks on their faces causing Kyle to frown in irritation. They weren’t late so that really only left one of two options, either the Adventurers that were currently glaring at them thought that they were just three kids who had come to bother them or they knew why they were here and were upset that they had to protect three weak kids who weren’t even Adventurers yet.

Eventually they managed to find Alistair and Galdon who seemed to be in the middle of a rather tense looking conversation, so they decided to wait patiently for them to finish but Alistair noticed them almost immediately and frowned when he saw Sonia standing next to the two boys.

“I thought I said that we would only be bringing the two of you,” Alistair said as Sonia shifted uncomfortably under his gaze.

“Can she please come too,” Kyle pleaded. “It’s her home too.”

“No,” Alistair replied coldly causing Sonia to flinch slightly and look away from the surprisingly intimidating man.

Seeing that Sonia was now shaking Kyle immediately placed a hand on her shoulder as he glared at Alistair. He knew that he was absolutely no threat to the older man, but he wasn’t about to back down. Not when Sonia hadn’t given up and soon her trembling stopped, and her eyes rose to meet Alistair’s own.

“Please sir, I’ve already lost one family I don’t want to lose another,” she said quietly but firmly. “Please take me with you.”

“And what do you think you will be able to do if you do come,” Alistair asked with a sigh. “I’m just worried for your safety.”

“I can handle myself,” she replied firmly.

“Yes, I’ve heard that was the case,” Alistair agreed. His position at the Adventurer’s Guild meant that he got reports from all of the related Guilds as well as the Adventurer’s School and he had heard that Sonia was quite a skilled fighter for someone who wasn’t really interested in becoming an Adventurer or guard.

“But that’s only against people with a similar Level,” he continued. “The soldiers of our own army have a Tier 3 Class at the very least and I’m assuming that the Imperial soldiers are of a similar quality if not higher. That’s why I requested the best Adventurers that I could find to help us out.”

“Look, Alistair I can take care of all three of them,” Galdon said as he placed a reassuring hand on the other man’s shoulder. He knew that Alistair was just worried for the girl’s safety and honestly, he would normally agree with his decision except for the fact that he had a bad feeling that they couldn’t stand around arguing for any longer than they already had. They had already wasted a lot of time getting everything ready overnight and notifying the crown of the Imperial incursion.

“If you say so Galdon,” Alistair sighed as he shook his head in defeat. “Alright let’s get going before we waste any more daylight.”

The last part of this was said much louder. Loud enough in fact that most of the Adventurers nearby heard him and passed the message along to the others and soon they were on the road. Kyle ended up riding behind Galdon on the back of a massive creature that looked sort of like a boar but had much longer legs that allowed it to run faster than the average horse.

This creature was known as a Kul’dan and was commonly used by Dwarves as a beast of burden or mount thanks to their massive strength and endurance. On average Dwarves weighed more than any other of the intelligent Races (with the exception of Geodes) thanks to their incredibly dense bones and powerful builds which meant that normal horses couldn’t carry them for very long. Hal was sitting up behind Alistair on the back of a pitch-black steed that Alistair had summoned out of thin air. This was one of the many spells that he had learned over the years since he had become a priest of Larchius and was actually one of his most used spells now that he was semi-retired. The horse was called a Shadow Steed and was much faster than the average horse. It also had a few special abilities that Alistair was hoping he wouldn’t have to use any time soon. And finally, Sonia was riding behind a pleasant Elvish woman who had volunteered to let the young woman ride with her on the back of her massive deer.

They were making far better time than they had when they had been making their way to Greenhearth thanks to the mounts that the Adventurers were riding but Kyle could feel that how tense Galdon was despite this. Not that he could ask the old man about this due to the massive noise created by the dozens of mounts thundering along the road which would drown out any question that he might ask.

About an hour later they passed the spot where Kyle and the others had stopped for the night on the way to Greenhearth which meant that at their current speed they should make it to Farholt in about another two hours if Kyle’s arithmetic was correct.

Sometime after that Alistair noticed a massive column of black smoke rising up ahead of the group and turned pale as he came to the conclusion that Farholt had come under attack. Thinking quickly, he started ordering the Adventurers to prepare for combat.

Galdon looked around at the faces of the Adventurers who were checking their equipment silently, he had to admit that Alistair had chosen a good group of Adventurers. They weren’t as powerful as some he had seen or even him as he was now but there were still very experienced fighters and many of them had already seen what happened to villages that stood up to Imperial soldiers.

Feeling Kyle’s arms tighten around his waist Galdon realised that Alistair had been right; bringing the young man and his friends along with them had been a mistake. Unfortunately, now that they were this close to Farholt the safest place was with the rest of the Adventurers despite the fact that what they were about to head into was almost certainly going to be nothing short of a scene right out of hell itself.

When they resumed their journey about a minute later an air of menace seemed to follow them down the road. The Adventurers had spread out into a formation with the Tank-type Classes in front followed by the Warrior and Rogue-types who were then followed by the ranged attackers with the healers forming up in back. Those who had mounts that could fly had taken to the air so that they could scout ahead and soon expressions of horror covered their faces as they saw what they were walking into. They had decided to keep to the ground so as to avoid unwanted attention up until now but

“Are you sure that you don’t want to take the kids back?” Alistair asked as he pulled up beside Galdon who was at the rear of the formation due to the fact that he had to protect his students.

“Believe me if I thought that was an option that’s what I’d do,” Galdon replied. “But we’re too close now and if they have scouts in stealth nearby something could go wrong.”

“You’re not confident of being able to handle a few scouts?” Alistair asked in surprise.

“Neither Jerald nor Emma seemed to be too worried about the couple of hundred Imperial soldiers showing up out of nowhere, but it looks like that was a mistake that might have cost them their lives and the lives of those they were supposed to be protecting,” Galdon pointed out causing Kyle and Hal to flinch. “Don’t get me wrong they might still be alive, but I don’t want to make the mistake of underestimating our opponents.”

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“I don’t think you were overreacting at all,” sighed Alistair as he glanced up at the scouts flying overhead who were now frantically signalling him. “If that was the case then the scouts wouldn’t be signalling that there was danger up ahead.”

Hearing this Galdon swore loudly and started to come up with a plan of action for if something went wrong. He had a myriad of different defensive spells including some that could protect his students from all but the most powerful attacks, so it wasn’t like he was lacking in options.

However, as they got closer to Farholt the scouts ceased to signal that there was danger ahead more columns of black smoke rose up ahead. Fearing that alloying the scouts to stay up there any longer would give away their position to any stragglers Alistair ordered the scouts to return to ground level and they immediately complied.

“What’s going on up ahead Kamilla?” Alistair asked the head scout as she landed next to him on the back of her grey coated Pegasus.

“It’s not good Alistair,” the rather green faced woman replied before glancing warily at Kyle who was watching her closely. “Most of the town has been burned to the ground and there’s a corpse of some sort of massive dragon just outside the walls. I’d tell you more, but we weren’t close enough to see much more than that.”

“A dragon?” Alistair asked in confusion. While it far from unusual for modern armies to use tamed monsters in combat using something as intelligent as a dragon, especially one large enough for Kamilla to refer to it as being ‘massive’ definitely was. This was because of how the Monster Taming Skill worked. Anyone using the Monster Taming Skill had to have both a higher Level than the monster they were trying to tame and higher Willpower. True dragons were among the most powerful types of monsters and usually had very high Willpower so the idea of anyone being able to tame one would be laughable except that Kamilla had absolutely no reason to lie to him and the idea of her incorrectly identifying the corpse was even more unlikely than someone taming a dragon. “That’s not a good sign. Anything else we need to know?”

“Are you sure you want me to tell you?” Kamilla asked as she looked around at the horrified faces of Kyle and the others. “Their families lived in Farholt right?”

“Will not telling them change anything?” Galdon asked his voice coming out harsher than he had intended making the woman flinch. “Besides they will see it soon enough.”

“Very well,” the woman replied with a loud sigh glancing apologetically at the teens who were still staring at her with blank faces as they found themselves unable to process what was going on. “It was hard to tell from so far away but there didn’t seem to be very many human sized corpses and you know what that means.”

“The surviving villagers were taken as slaves,” Alistair finished with a grim expression on his face. It was a little unusual for the Empire to take humans as slaves, but it had been known to happen the commanding officer decided that whatever ‘crime’ had been committed by the village that they had raided was bad enough to warrant such an action.

Horror washed over the bodies of Kyle and the others at these words. Every single one of their worst fears seemed to be coming true coming true. Kyle and Hal had just been talking to their parents last night and despite the danger that had suddenly appeared they hadn’t seemed to be too worried. However, that confidence had apparently been misplaced and not only had the village that they had grown up in been destroyed but their families had either been killed or enslaved by people who were well known to be incredibly violent towards their slaves. Hell, in the stories that Emma had told Kyle while he was growing up the people who lived in the Empire had always been portrayed as worse monsters than the ones that had appeared along with the System. Now Emma had also told her son at the end of every single one of these stories not to judge every citizen of the Empire by the actions of the people in charge but she had also made it very clear that if he encountered anyone from the Empire than they were mostly likely there to capture or kill him for being a deserter due to his nature as an Aethereal Human.

As they got closer to the village the columns of smoke loomed ever larger over their heads and ash started to fall on them like dirty grey snow. Soon they found themselves approaching what remained of the farm that Kyle had grown up on. The small house had been burned down to the ground and the fields had been torn up but by far the worst thing that they could see was what little remained corpses of the elvish family that hung limply on the stakes that they had burned to death on.

As they approached the corpses the smell of burnt flesh filled their nostrils causing many of the Adventurers lean over the side of their mounts and puke. They might be used to fighting monsters but that was very different to seeing that people were capable of things that were just as bad if not worse.

“Galdon, there are only three bodies,” Kyle groaned as he washed his mouth out with some water from the skin that the old man had given him. “According to my parents this was a family of five.”

“I’d like to say that I’m surprised by that but I’m not,” the powerfully built old man replied sadly before turning to Alistair. “This is the work of the Inquisition.”

“Are you sure?” Alistair asked.

The Inquisition was the cruellest and most dangerous group within the Empire. Religious fanatics that worshipped the Emperor as the living representative of their god and answered only to him. They were also the group that had created the original Aethereal Humans and there was a large number of them mong their members. Higher than any other group in the Empire in fact. This also explained why they had attacked this village. The Inquisition was always the group that was sent after Aethereal Humans who were attempting to escape the oppression of the Empire because they were the best at dealing with the Mental Energy techniques that Aethereal Humans were known for.

“I’m afraid so,” Galson sighed as he pointed at a strange symbol that had been dug into the earth in front of the stakes that the elves had been burned on. “That symbol is only used by the Inquisition.”

While Galdon and Alistair talked one of the Adventurers who had seen this sort of thing before quickly cut down what remained of the bodies of the elvish family while one of the mages that knew Earth magic quickly created three graves that they had placed the bodies in as respectfully as possible. The Adventurers knew that they didn’t have much time to pay their respects for the innocent family that had been slaughtered but they were loath to leave them tied to the stakes like that.

“I see,” Alistair replied as he watched the Adventurers pay their respects. “Well we need to get moving again. If we’re lucky we might be able to pick up the trail of the Imperials.”

“Do you think that there are any survivors?’ Kyle asked in a voice almost devoid of hope causing the older men to look his way sadly.

“I’m afraid not Kyle, or at least not in the village,” Galdon told the young man who was obviously in shock from what he had already seen. “Maybe you three should stay here after all.”

“No, I’m coming,” Kyle replied in a surprisingly calm tone of voice that was belied by the horror that lurked in his eyes. “I need to see this.”

Fi sighed sadly but nodded her agreement. She wasn’t sure why, but she had the feeling that something was going to happen soon that would change everything but that didn’t mean that she had to like it.

“And what about you two?” Alistair asked Hal and Sonia who looked to be in an even worse state than their friend.

“I- I think I need to go too,” Hal stammered. He knew that the chances of finding his family alive in what remained of the village of his birth were slim, but he knew that he had to make sure.

Sonia hesitated briefly but nodded her agreement silently. She really didn’t want to see anything worse than what she already had but she owed Kyle’s family and their friends too much to not continue on.

A grim faced Galdon sighed but nodded his agreement. Seeing this would probably scar these kids for life but they were also the only chance that they had to identify any of the dead villagers and figure out how many of them had been enslaved. It was an ugly job but sadly the records that Thomas had kept over the years had likely been destroyed in the fires and it had been a while since someone had come from the capital to retrieve them since Farholt was so remote.

Besides Galdon was now convinced that this attack was just the beginning of a new war between the Empire and the countries that surrounded it and even if he prevented them from seeing what the Imperial Army was capable of wreaking now all he would be doing was delaying the inevitable.

Soon they were once again on the move and started coming across more signs of battle. The ground on either side was torn up and every now and again they would come across the corpses of fallen soldiers or villagers who had been run down and were now being picked over by scavengers which fled at the sight of the approaching Adventurers. Closer to the walls of Farholt they found the corpse of the dragon that the scouts had spotted from the air and it was perhaps even larger than either Galdon or Alistair had expected.

“An Emerald Dragon,” Alistair said once they were close enough to identify the species. “At least Level 150, possibly as high as 170.”

“Yeah,” Galdon nodded. “Emma and the others must’ve been the ones to kill it. I doubt anyone else in this village could do much more than scratch its scales.”

“But if they killed the dragon, where are they now?” Alistair asked.

This question was answered when the rounded the mountainous corpse of the dragon to see a row of the same stone stakes that they had seen at the farm with more corpses hanging from then. Upon seeing one with a mace lying in front of it, Kyle started hyperventilating and a familiar dense Aura surrounded him as he dismounted in a daze while everyone else watched on in horror. The only one who wasn’t feeling the effects of Kyle’s Suppression Aura was Fi who was currently glowing even brighter than Kyle’s cerulean eyes.

Try as they might no one nearby was able to move so much as a single muscle and could only watch as Kyle slowly made his way over towards the burnt remains of his parents. Even as Alistair struggled against the weight that bound him to the spot his eyes widened as he recognised what was going on and he looked over to Galdon who was also watching the young man with a solemn look on his face.

Alistair had heard of things like this happening only a handful of times before, but it was the only thing that he could think of right now. They were being forced to watch the birth of a new Divine Champion.